Today, in most organizations, presentation is conventional method of communication. But when you make leadership talk key method by instituting "talk" courses and monitoring and evaluation systems broadly and deeply within organization, you will help make your company more effective and efficient.

Link: Though such recognition is first step in getting off sidelines, it won't get you into game. To get into center of things, you must link your activities with results. Not your results — their results.

Clearly, your clients are being challenged to get results: sales' closes, operations efficiencies, productivity advances, etc. Some results are crucial. But other results are absolutely indispensable. Your job is to help your clients achieve their results, especially indispensable results. You must be their "results partner." Furthermore, you must help them get sizable increases in those results. The results that they get with your help should be more than results that they would have gotten without your help.

For instance, when developing company-wide objectives for leadership talks, you should not aim to have participants win a speaking "beauty contests" but instead to speak so that they motivate others to get increases in measured results. When you change focus of courses from speaking appearance to reality of results, you change participants' view of and commitment to courses and also their view of and commitment to you in providing those courses. So have participants define their indispensable results and link principles and processes they learned in course to getting measured increases in those results.

Execute: It's not enough to recognize. It's not enough to link. You must execute. "Execute" comes from a Latin root exsequi meaning "to follow continuously and vigorously to end or even to ‘the grave.'" Let's capture if not letter at least spirit of this lively root by insuring that your activities on behalf of your clients are well "executed," that they are carried out vigorously and continuously in their daily work throughout their careers. If those activities are helping them get results, you are truly their "results partner."

For instance, in regard to leadership talk courses, HR professionals can lead an "initiative approach." At conclusion of course, each participant selects an initiative to institute back on job. The aim of each initiative is to get sizable increases in their indispensable results by using principles and processes that they learned.

The initiatives and their results should be concrete and measurable, such as productivity gains, increases in sales, operations efficiencies, and reduced cycle times.

The participants should be challenged to get increases in results above and beyond what they would have gotten without having taken course. They should be challenged to get those increases within a mutually agreed upon time, such as quarterly reports. In fact, if participants don't achieve an increase in results that translates to at least ten times what course costs, they should get their money back.

Don't stop there. Getting an increase in results is not end of course, it should be beginning — beginning of a new phase of getting results, stepping up phase. The more results participants achieve, more opportunities they have created to achieve even more results. The leadership talk course should have methods for instituting results' step-ups.

One such method can be a quarterly leadership-talk round table. Participants who graduate from course meet once a quarter to discuss results they have gotten and provide best practices for getting more. Human resources should organize, direct and facilitate round tables. In this way, results leaders are getting should increase quarter after quarter.

When HR professionals promote such leadership talk courses, courses that are linked to getting increases in indispensable results and that come with "results guarantee," those professionals are truly seen as results partners in their organizations. I have used leadership talk as an example of how you can greatly enhance your contributions to company by applying Leadership Imperative. Don't just apply Imperative to such courses alone. Apply it to whatever challenge confronts you.

When you recognize how that challenge can be met through Imperative, when you link challenge to getting increases in measured results, and when you execute for results, you can transform your function.

You don't have to be as distinguished as Einstein or as awesome as Big Daddy Lipscomb, but you will in your individual way perceive simple, powerful center of things. You'll be in thick of most important game your company is playing — helping change your world and world of your clients.

* * * Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computer Corporation is a master of deep green leadership. His organization is famous for aligning resources with strategy and leads its industry with power and authority. In his memoirs Dell emphasizes how important it is for all employees to understand organizations value creation strategy and to realize that their rewards are related to actions that directly support this strategy. "We explained specifically how everyone could contribute.... And we make it core of our incentive compensation plan for all employees.2" At Dell Computer, power and authority, not to mention impressive returns over many years, were direct result of deep green leadershipSM programs that provided clarity and alignment about resource flows.

These stories demonstrate power of deep green leadership and its impact on people, whether in a division or across firm. When leadership operates to reinforce people's deeply held sense fairness with respect to resources and their access to them, they are empowered. This energizes them, so that everyone organizes collective effort, not just a few people at top of pyramid.

The Story Part 2: Resolution When Lynn arrived in his office, he immediately asked some tough questions. "How well do people understand their decision authority? and do they understand how our business works? how resources flow and decisions are made? Are we passionate that everyone has tools and resources they need to do their jobs? Do we critically review project plans and budgets and make sure everyone controls resources they need? Do people feel they share in our collective success? How does situation compare with six months ago? How engaged are our people?

These were difficult questions, but ones that could be answered. The process took several weeks, but once data was gathered and preliminary analysis was completed, trend was clear—leadership activity aimed at clarifying resource distribution flows in organization, deep green leadershipSM activity, had fallen off in organization.

When he had these answers, Lynn called his leadership team together to share findings and express his concerns. "We seem to have lost our edge," he said. "I don't see same level of self-motivation and energy in our people that I did six months ago. Data showing reduced activity levels in this area across firm support my belief that there is cause for concern. Our leadership velocitySM in areas of resources, decision authority and reward distribution has dropped off. To be strong company we need to be, we have to do better."

The team had a difficult time at first, uncomfortable that all members of organization could ever feel they were being treated fairly and had what they needed to do their jobs. It seemed a bit ambitious and perhaps naïve to believe everyone could be made to think organization was fair in its resource distribution. "Life isn't fair", some managers argued.

What began as a one-hour discussion, continued into evening. Follow-up meetings were held with a much broader array of leaders. It became clear from interaction that even among leadership, there was a sense that there was an unevenness or arbitrariness in decision making, and tellingly, that this was okay. Renewal was needed. As Lynn knew, it had already begun.

In course of discussion, it was agreed that a key objective over next six months was to greatly clarify decision-making authorities and resource flows across organization. Each group agreed to work within their teams to clarify and document their value creation strategies and decision making process at all levels of their organization. Monthly town meetings were planned with sole focus on how firm did business, what drove success and how each person's work fit into process. In parallel, compensation programs of firm were reviewed and communication plans developed to further everyone's understanding of how resources were used and distributed in organization. The process cascaded into organization until a consistent and clear picture of business began to emerge across organization. The quarterly cultural survey in use was modified to include targeted questions to provide on-going feedback.

After six months, results of this initiative were documented in a new section of on firm's employee website. As appropriate, aspects were also integrated into organizations planning process thus providing much greater clarity and visibility to into process. All managers were asked to communicate process with their teams and provide feedback. After several months, changes to process dwindled to a manageable level, and enthusiasm was up. Excitement was evident and morale was improving.

To close out cycle of leadership, Lynn asked his teams to propose ways to be proactive, with continuous feedback and action. He realized that leadership requires discipline and vigilance and that nothing works forever. At same time, he didn't want to wait for same problem to surface again.

Epilogue On a recent visit to same sales office he had visited earlier, Lynn shared a ride with a sales manager who was also heading to airport. He found it was a good opportunity to learn what a junior manager was thinking and how she thought about organization. "You know", she said a bit timidly, "I'm glad to know you're sharing your ride to airport. We are pretty close to hitting out stretch objective this quarter and we need to save every dime we can. I'm hoping to have a little extra spending money at Disney World this spring!"

As he pulled his luggage from trunk with a loud "thump!", Lynn smiled to himself. He was happy to share his car if it helped her have a little more fun with her family. She deserved it. _____________________________________

1Burgelman, R.A. (1991). Intra-organizational ecology of strategy making and organizational adaptation: Theory and field research. Organization Science, 2(3), 239-262.

2Dell, Michael with Catherine Fredman. (1999) Direct from Dell: Strategies that revolutionized an industry. New York; Harper Business. p.135.